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Thursday, June 18, 2015

I'm Not Your Stepping Stone

On Saturday B had friends over to work on the One Day Shed (more on that later) and I had friends over to make stepping stones for a pathway.

We like to feed people who help us do manual labor on days where it's so hot you just want to sit under the sprinkler so we had an impromptu pizza party. I made my new favorite pizza dough the night before and everyone had a personal pizza they could top with whatever they liked!

Then at about noon, on the hottest day thus far this year, we made some pavers! This is a great thing to do with friends on a cool day with a nice breeze. Otherwise you'll be mixing quikrete while thinking about how nice it'd feel to put your hands all in it like I was.

Mix a bag of Quikrete. (About $5 a bag.) Pour it into any boxes you have available and then design it how you'd like. We used flat marbles, broken glass mosaic pieces and colorful bottle caps. Even the box thinks they are, "Adorable!"

My helpers are pretty adorable too.

Every few minutes one of the boys would wander over to check our progress and they all coyly asked, "Did you put anything on the boxes to keep the cement from sticking?"

"Pam," said Jessica.

"Yeah we lined them with plastic wrap," explained Erin.

"We used parchment paper," snorted Julie.

We didn't use anything. The cardboard just peels right off after the Quikrete sets. A few of the stones did crack because I shifted them to cover them with laundry baskets due to a slight chance of rain overnight. They are still very sturdy and if they crack I will just have more pavers.

I think they turned out great and at $15 the price was right!

That night as we were watching TV in the air conditioned bliss I saw....a small head...peek from behind the entertainment center.

"Um. I think I just saw a mouse...or something...bigger than a mouse," I said to B calmly. He got up and looked behind the entertainment center with a flash light.

"Flying squirrel."

Now, let's back up about a week or so, we were driving through the neighborhood talking about flying squirrels, like you do, and I explained to him that they live in our neighborhood. B said he'd never seen one and I told him that's because they only come out very, very late at night. Our friend Kurt is a biologist who works with flying squirrels and he's my expert on these kind of things. I wished aloud that I'd see one.

I guess Punkin heard me because she brought us one.

We caught it with my ever useful $1 "butterfly" net....that's turning into more of a "Anything" net and put it on the porch. It let me snap a few photos before leaping into the night.

IT WAS SO CUTE!!!!

In other biologic news, we saw a turtle lay eggs. Here's the hole it made with its butt.

Also, our cardinal babies have fledged. They also very courteously let me take a picture of them before they left.